We should address the ACTUAL problem with Slugging

How about a simple give up option after 2 minutes of slugged?

This solves the issue about being slugged for way too long and it cant be abused to bully the killer.

How exactly are any of the suggestions I've listed thus far capable of being abused to bully the killer?

Every single option here still leaves the survivor unable to do anything capable of "bullying" the killer. They can't sabo, they can't pallet stun, they can't blind, they can't body block… they even have incentives to crawl out from under a pallet to try and complete key objectives. Every more productive option I've listed like totems and gens are conspicuous actions, which disables Decisive Strike so can't bully that way either, and between the slow crawling and big penalties to even start progressing objectives, let alone the attached slowdown, you're always better to recover and/or get picked up…

i don't care about such thing as "bullying" killer at all, i'm talking about overall making another basekit change that exclusively suits one side without looking at what the source of problem is.

Suicide on Hook is already rampant… Why would you prefer/provide another option for more survivors to quit the game, rather than introduce mechanisms to allow the game to keep going?

it is, but for completely different reasons.

Why not address both issues rather than discount one problem by masking it with another? Make hooking more appealing AND allow slugged players to still have agency but heavily hindered seems like a better state of health overall, does it not?

if we want to address both issues, we should first look at the very source of problem. Make hooking more appealing, wait to see how intense slugging becomes after and then, if problem with slugging still isn't fixed, advance to addressing it.

Currently you've just stated it's unhealthy, and said hooks need to be punished less. As described above, there is nothing listed here that is at all preferable for a survivor being slugged, they are significantly less efficient in every single way… and slugging players is still a perfectly valid method of slowing down the survivor team significantly with this suggestion.

gen repair, even at lower speed, is a big no, as well as gate opening while being slugged, totem cleansing too.

If you want to say slugged players shouldn't have agency and it's a problem for the game that survivors have additional actions they can take while slugged but at a heavily hindered rate, you'll need to explain what exactly it is that makes it unhealthy.

the very mindset of average survivor player is what would make it unhealthy, i've already seen quite a lot people getting mad at others for pointing out problems with slugging and it's relations with hooking. One dude posted it on twitter and mass of people kept commenting stuff like

"shouldn't bigger challenge be more fun"

"skill issue"

"we deserve to have something against toxic killers" etc.

People have been extremely spoiled and they don't want any solution that will benefit health of the game for both sides, they just want that side they play gets benefits.

They could add the ability for the last person to get themselves off the ground at a very slow rate. This would discourage slugging for the 4K because once one person is dead the other person could get up.

What I have to say in this discussion (after some of the stuff said here) is we need more new features that improve the game and add new things to it basekit for both sides. We haven’t got any new features since a long long time. The only things we get is perks and killers, no new features. Dbd needs new features and all this “survivors should never get anything new” is so stupid. I really hope the devs will try to add new things/mechanics to the game, which are desperately needed. This abhorrence/hate against anything new in this community is so annoying. No wonder this game can’t improve and doesn’t get any new features, when this community isn’t open for anything.

I really think being able to do gens while slugged defeats the purpose of why some killers slug.

Not that I'm defending 4-man slug tactics, that needs something for sure, but the reason some killers will slug one or two survivors is because they need to slow down gen progression. Same with proxy-camping and tunneling to an extent. And I doubt we want gens to take even longer if you're asking for survivors to be able to do their objective at all times unless on hook. Exit gate progression while slugged is also counter to how endgame is played out.

Some of your other ideas are pretty good though, I will say. Not so sure about chests and items, but using totems as a way to pick yourself up could be interesting. Even make it where hexes prevent it, or at least make it 50% slower. It would also make Pentimento more useful outside of hex builds (which would possibly require a nerf to some numbers, depending on the potency) and possibly make deerstalker a near-meta perk alongside Penti to keep an eye if the survivor picks themselves up with a totem.

Similar to Rulebreaker's suggestion, I would have 2 separate, 95'd Survivors be able to pick each other up at the same time. That way, if a Killer is intentionally BMing and camping their corpses, the 2nd Surv at least gets the weapon wipe hit CD to run away.

While I agree with the premise that dying survivors lacking agency is the main problem, it is entirely by design thst dying survivors cannot further objectives, even side objectives. This is what generates pressure to rescue dying survivors.

Even having actions at reduced rate could be problematic. Imagine you down someone repairing a gen that's at 95%, and another survivor is right there ready to finish it. That is probably the most understandable scenario to slug someone for pressure, but it would be a lose-lose scenario if the dying survivor could finish those repairs even at a third of the speed. The whole premise seems to be punishing the wrong kind of slugging, as it's not going to help in the most egregious cases of killers bleeding you out in spite.

I think what they need to add for dying survivors is a way to exact personal agency. So that you have more control over yourself and your positioning, and your chances of survival.

By allowing dying survivors to 'sprint' with a cost to bleedout time, you may only be adding one single action, but it's still an action that can be taken.

• Hold sprint to crawl twice as fast and bleedout twice as fast.

You can find a safe spot where you can be rescued, which also costs the killer for leaving you if they're then unable to find you or prevent another survivor rescuing you, however this doesn't eliminate the pressure of slugging that something like Unbreakable or the abiliy to further objectives would do.

It would also have the effect of providing a quicker route out of the game if the killer is just bleeding you out obnoxiously.

This shouldn't impact the value of Tenacity, as that would still provide simultaneous recovery and eliminate the bleedout cost.

I do think there should be another effect that only triggers when ALL survivors are slugged, which allows ONE survivor to be able to recover themselves. As this would only cone into play when slugging is used not for pressure, but for 'checkmate' when downing all four at the start of the game or preventing the hatch from spawning.

Being on the hook, the survivor has 0 agency. they can physically do NOTHING except struggle or kill themselves faster.

Hooks have been in the game for ages and survivor have adopted hooks as "ok" gameplay. it is mystery to why slugging is not an ok gameplay loop during the match.

obviously, there is 4 man slugging in end game and the toxic type slugging…. like leaving survivors on the floor purposely when 1 survivor is alive and like doing very… questionable things like humping, constantly picking the survivor up and dropping them, wasting survivor time, the toxic type slugging but that is something that BVHR should try be address in these type of gameplay loops where killer doesn't abuse a gameplay mechanic for malicious intent…. kinda similar to how people would spam flashlight clicks to be toxic to the killer even though flashlight is a fine gameplay tool.

All agency is taken from your hands and you're just forced to either be bled out be rescued by someone who may not even come.

this sentence right here can be 100% copied, 1:1 for hooks. this was my point.

killers that wanna troll cant just keep picking you up then knocking you again just to extend your time in match

that is toxic version of using slugging. killers used to have a name in old days for survivors that did not end the game and would purposely spend time abusing infinity loops because during that time, killer vault 3x slower, there was no entity blockers and bloodlust did not exist. if it was a swf doing this, they were refer to as "Bully squads" because their entire objective was to bully and be toxic as possible to the killer. so you'd just have a survivor that macro click his flashlight 1000x times in your ear vaulting an infinity window over and over to just prologue the game forever. they removed all this stuff from survivor.

Unfortunately killer can do similar toxic behavior with slugging where they can pick you up, have you wiggle out, hit you on floor again and just waste your time. you'll have killer that nod and hump and have you do this painful 4 minute process for you to bleed out. None of this gameplay. the killer is using slugging to be annoying just like survivors used to use flashlights and unfair vaults to do same thing in the past. they never bother to try address this toxic killer gameplay…. well they tried address it once by introducing this "finisher" mori system which would grant survivors unlimited base-kit unbreakable every 45 seconds in order implement some instant mori system when all 4 survivors were on the floor. they attempt to address this in a negative light towards gameplay.

it's more interactive than just crawling for the sake of crawling.

The slugging that i am refer to is when killers are slugging and attempting kills survivors through slugging. Like actual gameplay related to slugging. Crawling around is still more gameplay than being perfectly stationary on a hook. in many ways, your moving position of hooks ever so slightly as you crawl forward to your teammates.

In most cases, when killer talk about slugging, they're not talking about toxic mindless slugging end game, they're usually talking about their early-game and mid-game slugging.

One thing you mentioned is definitely worth highlighting; some people playing killer are seeing less and less benefit from hooking compared to slugging. I play both roles, and I definitely see situations where slugging is more optimal against some teams and in some situations than hooking. I'll slug and start a chase for pressure, and there are games where I see that hooking someone might actually cost me the advantage. Sometimes I even slug to be nice to someone so they can stay in the game.

Having said that, I do feel in both survivor and killer matches that slugging sometimes feels extremely rude or even mean. And in those cases as killer, I'll put the survivor on a hook regardless of whether I could get more advantage from it (the last survivor should always get a chance at hatch).

I think the slugging meta that's resulted from those advantages is a problem though, with some people even using slugging builds. From a survivor's perspective, slugging does feel like a total loss of agency; the only thing I can really do is slowly try to hide so a teammate can pick me up. Being on a hook feels more engaging to me. I think it would be more fun if survivors could do some tiny actions that might end up being slightly useful (e.g. open a chest with a speed penalty so they could hope for a medkit or get a crawling speed boost at bleedout timer penalty).

But I do think you're right, it's a problem that slugging is looking more and more beneficial compared with hooking. It's something that should be addressed.

An interesting take, but I think it's an overly complicated solution. And no doubt people would still complain about how slow and dull crawling everywhere to do those actions still is, or sitting in place recovering.

Give them a method to perform a self-pickup to regain the agency you describe, just make it not the most desirable choice compared to being healed by a teammate.

I'd love to see what happens were these changes added to the dying state:

• Survivors can now recover while crawling (with a 50% recovery speed penalty when moving, Tenacity removes the penalty and increases the crawling speed). This is to make recovery feel more fluid instead of only recovering while stationary.
• Survivors can pick themselves up under Hook at full recovery, but become Broken until the next time they're put into the dying state.
• Survivors bleedout faster while underneath a Hook, but have increased recovery speed, maybe 100% on both points? (this is to add a new dynamic and an option to "give up" like self-unhook attempts.)

Hooks require a commitment from the Killer, and provide an opportunity to rescue the Survivor through things like stuns/blinds/sabotages.

Don't you think this a problem for killer? A lot of killer dislike this aspect of gameplay and actively found it unfun. Otz specific had interview tru3 awhile back where he said that he used like altruism actions from survivors that would encourage protecting teammates and keeping the team alive. After his 2nd interview, He stated that he really disliked altruism and found that when survivors were successful at doing these actions, they made match less fun for him. Many killer agree with this which is why perks like Background player and For the people+Buckle up received nerfs.

Beyond fun factor, the killer is generally the role that has invisible clock for how long until they lose all gens and survivors are able escape. from a balance perceptive, survivors succeed at any of those actions likely one of easiest way to slant a match into survivors favor. these actions being strong or successful promote slugging further.

Hooks force a stricter time-limit on other survivors to perform a rescue before the hooked survivor gets closer to death.

This aspect has lead to many survivors dislike camping to the point that strict timer is becoming less and less of factor. it is almost like it is more rude to killer to force second stages.

You can also "bleed out faster" on Hook if you so choose, and there's a possibility of a self-unhook/"pickup".

Another point of contention and frustration. Teammates killing themselves on hook and going next. A way to scapegoat the D/C penalty. Not very fun for survivor especially if your on that team.

I think that's why Hooks are considered ok compared to slugging, which comes across as disrespectful, boring, and in extreme cases much longer lasting than a Hook.

i think the main points of contention that survivor use towards slugging is slugging in end game for 3k to get 4k and that toxic form of slugging which is just there to waste survivor time and annoy the survivor. the survivor that hate all form of slugging likely hate slugging because it contributes to them losing. it is likely same reason why many survivor dislike tunneling for same reason because it contributes to survivors losing. for all these reasons, survivor keep pushing base-kit unbreakable.